Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, Steve here. As we recently announced, we are
Speaker 1: no longer producing new episodes of the podcast, but we
Speaker 1: did have content that we have recorded that we had
Speaker 1: not put into the regular feed for everybody to hear,
Speaker 1: and we wanted to share that with you, of course.
Speaker 1: So what you're hearing here is one of those episodes
Speaker 1: of Down the Rabbit Hole that hadn't gone out into
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Speaker 1: Thinking Sideways stories of things we simply don't know the
Speaker 1: answer to. I don't know down Joe says zee Chow,
Speaker 1: And welcome to another episode of thinking sideways down the
Speaker 1: rabbit Hole. I am Steve, of course, joined by Devin
Speaker 1: and Joe, and welcome to another bonus episode because that's
Speaker 1: what down the rabbit Hole is. For our premium members
Speaker 1: this week, we well, we don't have a mystery for you.
Speaker 1: We have something completely different. We have a little it's
Speaker 1: a little bit of a mystery. That's it's a little
Speaker 1: like were you doing? Is that the mystery? The mystery
Speaker 1: is who cares? I'm kidding. It is actually really interesting.
Speaker 1: So here's the deal for for those of you who
Speaker 1: don't know, I recently just got back from a several
Speaker 1: week trip to Vietnam and Cambodia, and I had a
Speaker 1: lot of fun. And I've told these two Devin and
Speaker 1: Joe about my my experiences and you have but you
Speaker 1: haven't yet a liar. I have totally showed you pictures,
Speaker 1: but you have to follow him on social media. Still
Speaker 1: coming out. But the point is I one of the
Speaker 1: things that I did is I had traveled overseas a
Speaker 1: couple of years ago, and about a year later, I
Speaker 1: realized that I was looking at pictures and I couldn't
Speaker 1: remember details, and I wanted to be able to remember
Speaker 1: those details. So I sat down and I started just
Speaker 1: kind of stream of consciousness writing different things that I
Speaker 1: remembered about my trip, the tiger cages, the torture, none
Speaker 1: of that. But You've got a right idea so that
Speaker 1: I could recall it and I could look at it
Speaker 1: later on and say, oh, yeah, that's exactly what I
Speaker 1: was thinking, instead of years later going I remember I
Speaker 1: saw this thing, but I don't remember anything about it.
Speaker 1: And I've shared that with you two, And I could
Speaker 1: just sit here and wax philosophical for twenty minutes about
Speaker 1: my trip, and you'd be bored out of your cords. Well,
Speaker 1: our listeners might be interested, you two would be bored,
Speaker 1: and that's not fair to do to you because I'm
Speaker 1: a team player. So I sent this to you. We
Speaker 1: talked about this. UM, I know there's questions or things
Speaker 1: that you've found fun or funny. So I'm gonna let
Speaker 1: YouTube kind of start off the conversation or questions and
Speaker 1: then we'll just kind of roll it from there. Does
Speaker 1: that work for you, guys, Devin, do you have any questions?
Speaker 1: You had a list of things you saw on scooters
Speaker 1: well energetic banks, guys that most you haven't traveled a
Speaker 1: bit in the Third World myself. Modes of transportation are
Speaker 1: always fascinating in some of these places that egos are
Speaker 1: yeah they are right, yeah, So yeah, what is the
Speaker 1: most outrageous scooter instantent you saw? Okay, so well, let's
Speaker 1: start with scooters because that is the main form of transportation,
Speaker 1: because while there are some cars, it turns out the
Speaker 1: import tax on cars to Vietnam is huge, so only
Speaker 1: the rich habit and rich are usually high powered political
Speaker 1: figures because it's a communist country. So way it works,
Speaker 1: everybody's poor, everybody's equal, So everybody has a scooter or
Speaker 1: rents the scooter. So Uber is on scooters, by the way.
Speaker 1: And there's another one called grab which I liked. But
Speaker 1: you have to take everything you buy somewhere on a scooter.
Speaker 1: That's I mean, that's how you get it home. And
Speaker 1: I have a list of things here which let's just
Speaker 1: run down this because this is fun things on scooters.
Speaker 1: Half a dozen pigs in a cage and by that
Speaker 1: I mean like thirty forty pound pigs from the back
Speaker 1: of the scooter. There was about a half dozen squeezed
Speaker 1: in there. I think you guys saw that picture you
Speaker 1: two here. Uh, there were families, entire families on scooters.
Speaker 1: So it would be parent driving the scooter with a
Speaker 1: child in front of them on some kind of makeshift
Speaker 1: child seat unless they were teenage, and then they could
Speaker 1: stand on their own on the floorboard. Child behind that
Speaker 1: driver parent and then the other parent behind that child
Speaker 1: the kind of sandwich the youngest one in between them.
Speaker 1: So entire families, which was awesome. Let's see, oh, construction.
Speaker 1: Construction is done using normal materials like concrete and wood
Speaker 1: and metals and rebars and poles. You see all of
Speaker 1: that carried by the driver or their passenger. Nothing funnier
Speaker 1: than somebody with a twenty foot piece of metal running
Speaker 1: length of the vehicle and they're driving. Stay out. And
Speaker 1: by the way, traffic is dense as in, there are
Speaker 1: scooters packed up against each other. So imagine being the
Speaker 1: guy with the javelins just an accident waiting to happen.
Speaker 1: That sounds I was someone. I saw one and a
Speaker 1: half accidents my entire time there. So they're used to
Speaker 1: this stuff. Let's see how I love this. People have pets,
Speaker 1: so they have dogs. Dogs are kind of a favored thing,
Speaker 1: it appears, and so they have little baskets on the
Speaker 1: front of their their scooters, so you see dogs in that.
Speaker 1: But it's great when you see a full sized dog
Speaker 1: like Malla mute husky, not a scooter on the floor
Speaker 1: the foot rail, you know, sideways looking forward, tail blowing back.
Speaker 1: I have the little guys not burning his burning himself
Speaker 1: on the tailpipe or anything like. No, that dog, well, no,
Speaker 1: I think he was because there's a human between him
Speaker 1: and the tailpipes. It was okay, let's see. Uh oh.
Speaker 1: I saw a guy driving once holding a door the
Speaker 1: passenger by the way, you know, like a door to
Speaker 1: a house, straight up and down. So driver door straight
Speaker 1: he was holding an episode that it was catching the
Speaker 1: wind totally, totally like he was in the city. So
Speaker 1: they were maybe doing fifteen or tw that's a lot
Speaker 1: of wind. It's a lot of wind. I think I
Speaker 1: would have held at the other door, like ninety degrees
Speaker 1: to that. And then the other thing that I saw
Speaker 1: there is, of course everybody has a cell phone, just
Speaker 1: like here. All have cell phones. So nothing was funnier
Speaker 1: to me than seeing people driving a scooter talking on
Speaker 1: their cell phone. But even better reading there's texting. The
Speaker 1: texting get in a car is dumb and dangerous and
Speaker 1: you shouldn't do it, but it was scary. That was
Speaker 1: That was actually not that long ago. I was here
Speaker 1: in Wright in Portland and it was behind some kind
Speaker 1: of scooter and he's just buzzing along and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden I see it into his pocket and pull
Speaker 1: his phone out, and he's looking and looked down at it.
Speaker 1: I think. I don't think he wasn't actually texting back
Speaker 1: and he was checking. Yeah. I know it's crazy, but
Speaker 1: you know, that's one of the one of the fun
Speaker 1: things about traveling in some of these places is like
Speaker 1: the transportation, and like one of my one of my
Speaker 1: favorite things to me that when I was in Bolivia
Speaker 1: some years back, everybody down there has if you have
Speaker 1: a car, which very few people have, but most people
Speaker 1: have those Toyota Mini Mini bands, you know that like
Speaker 1: a volks same size and shape as a Volkswagen bus,
Speaker 1: like seven people. Yea seating arrangement, Yeah, except in Bolivia.
Speaker 1: It turns out people are people are much smaller in
Speaker 1: Bolivia and have shorter lakes, so they actually squeeze an
Speaker 1: extra bench in every one of those, and so there's
Speaker 1: sort of a privatized transportation system in the city is
Speaker 1: like in La Paz and stuff. But I caught this
Speaker 1: ride to Lake Titty Cock was my friends and it
Speaker 1: was I was crammed into the back and we had
Speaker 1: all of our stuff strapped to the top and everything.
Speaker 1: And at one I counted the number of people in
Speaker 1: there and they were including the driver in the past
Speaker 1: and in the front faster. There were seventeen people inside
Speaker 1: that and also some boxes and a dog inside that thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not cool. And it was the most uncomfortable ride
Speaker 1: of my life because the bench in front of me
Speaker 1: was so close that when I got in, I shifted
Speaker 1: my my booth of my legs were tight together and
Speaker 1: I shipped them to the shifted them to the left.
Speaker 1: There was no moving my legs and I was done
Speaker 1: and they were squeezed tight together. So I was seriously
Speaker 1: wondering if I was going to be sterile after it
Speaker 1: was the worst, the most uncomfortable ride ever. And I've
Speaker 1: been on others that was that was just the best
Speaker 1: or the worst, depending but yeah, that's that's one of
Speaker 1: the fun things about traveling and some of those parts
Speaker 1: of the world. Though what since Devin, I think you
Speaker 1: asked the first Ye Joe, what's what's the next question?
Speaker 1: Out of the ramblings of Vietnam? Oh, my god, the
Speaker 1: ramblings of Vietnam? Did you see any cool any any
Speaker 1: cool war stuff? Like did you see some of the
Speaker 1: cool tunnel complexes that they built? So I did not
Speaker 1: go into the tunnel complexes. You could go to a
Speaker 1: place where you you literally had to crawl on your
Speaker 1: hands and knees, and I wasn't interested in that. I
Speaker 1: did go to the Vietnam War Memorial, which is a
Speaker 1: three story building. I said, you, guys, photos of the
Speaker 1: aircraft outside. There were U S aircraft that have been
Speaker 1: left behind when they left uh Saigon. Which is funny
Speaker 1: is they renamed it Ho Chi Minh City, but everybody
Speaker 1: still calls it Saigon except on paper, which is hilarious.
Speaker 1: But but I went to that and that that was
Speaker 1: really really interesting because I went in not having this
Speaker 1: sense of American guilt. I didn't go in thinking that,
Speaker 1: and I didn't come out thinking that either. But what
Speaker 1: I did find really interesting was the way it's it's
Speaker 1: your typical museum, giant text placards and images. I did
Speaker 1: see Kappa Robert Kappa. He was his image and his
Speaker 1: story was there, which was interesting, along with dozens of
Speaker 1: other photo photographers that died in the war on both sides.
Speaker 1: But what I did find really interesting was the way
Speaker 1: they described things. So all of the North Vietnamese that
Speaker 1: died in the war were repeatedly referred to as patriots,
Speaker 1: which for the winning side makes sense except where it
Speaker 1: was used so prevalently. Uh, there was the puppet government
Speaker 1: which was referred to as the South Vietnamese Government that
Speaker 1: was set up by the US. By the way, in
Speaker 1: English as well as totally it was all in English,
Speaker 1: it was not in Vietnamese. It was set up for
Speaker 1: Western tourists, so there was, but there was the proper government.
Speaker 1: There was. I think the word oppressors was in there was.
Speaker 1: There was some very strong worded language that wasn't inflammatory,
Speaker 1: but it was very interesting the way it was written
Speaker 1: that it definitely was saying you people came in. The
Speaker 1: Americans were terrible. The French suck too, but the Americans
Speaker 1: were horrid, but it would The French were pretty hard too,
Speaker 1: but they were right. They did some bad things, but
Speaker 1: it was very interesting. It was a three story complex.
Speaker 1: I didn't spend a whole lot of time in the
Speaker 1: agent orange room. Uh, that was surprised. Yeah, the fetus
Speaker 1: in a box, yeah, amound the hide box. Yeah that
Speaker 1: was sounds kind of gross. But but other than that,
Speaker 1: so that that was the worst stuff. And then they had,
Speaker 1: like I said before, I sent you guys photos of
Speaker 1: planes and the helicopters that had been left behind. They
Speaker 1: put those outside. If you travel around the city, though,
Speaker 1: there are fighter planes and helicopters in different military equipment
Speaker 1: in Hanoi and more so in Saigon, actually mostly in
Speaker 1: Paigon that is on display as kind of je unrule
Speaker 1: memorial stuff of look what us, well, look what we did.
Speaker 1: Although it was just the fifty year anniversary, so a
Speaker 1: lot of that stuff was really prevalent. It made sense
Speaker 1: that they'd probably been putting those installations up. I'm guessing
Speaker 1: the tanks have always been there, but the placards and
Speaker 1: the billboards and stuff like that seemed to be newer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it sounds to me like they're pretty much over it,
Speaker 1: though I wouldn't say they were over They were celebrating
Speaker 1: that they had they had, they were victorious, and they
Speaker 1: freed their nation from you know, these people who came
Speaker 1: in and took over. I mean, I mean, was the
Speaker 1: word insurgeon. It wasn't, it was a pressor. But the
Speaker 1: French they kicked the French out, and then the American
Speaker 1: looked terrible they were and well, we can't not going
Speaker 1: to vietn These our motives, our motives for coming into
Speaker 1: the country were a little different than the French, where
Speaker 1: the French actually did colonize the place, whereas we came
Speaker 1: in and took over for the French, just because by
Speaker 1: that time, you know, the communists are trying to take
Speaker 1: over the country, so our motivations were a little bit different.
Speaker 1: And maybe attend at this place, but this isn't a
Speaker 1: portable forum, so we can talk about that again sometime.
Speaker 1: But the Yeah, anyway, so I feel like, well, I
Speaker 1: was just gonna say, I feel like I was thinking
Speaker 1: about like the pictures you posted and stuff, and I
Speaker 1: was feeling like there are a lot of people wearing
Speaker 1: the like you see in Japan as well, the masks,
Speaker 1: the face masks. Yeah, like the medical line, yeah, the
Speaker 1: medic yeah. But yeah, so so yeah, Devin is talking
Speaker 1: about in the late nineties early two thousands, around the
Speaker 1: time the bird flu happened. You would see those photos
Speaker 1: of people in the Asian world wearing those masks, presumably
Speaker 1: to stop catching the flu, which is stupid because they
Speaker 1: don't work, because unless it's hermetically sealed your face and
Speaker 1: you're breathing fresh air, that doesn't work. But the point
Speaker 1: is is that people now in Asia are running around
Speaker 1: all the time with them, and it's totally because of
Speaker 1: how dirty the air is. I was there in March
Speaker 1: and it was getting to be warm and so it
Speaker 1: was dusty. It is smoggy because they don't have emissions controls.
Speaker 1: As I can tell. Everybody's runn around as scooters, which
Speaker 1: are at the cleanest burning vehicles in the world. But
Speaker 1: the mask are hilarious for a couple of reasons. One
Speaker 1: because people wear them everywhere, not just on their scooter,
Speaker 1: but you will see them walking around. You'll see them
Speaker 1: in buildings and businesses, and yeah, it's kind of I
Speaker 1: put it on. It's like wearing a hat. I put
Speaker 1: it on and I forgot it was there, and so
Speaker 1: I'm just wearing it. The other thing is that there's
Speaker 1: the basic medical style, the papery ones with the elastic band,
Speaker 1: but you see a lot of them that are fabric
Speaker 1: and I get the feeling that they might have some
Speaker 1: kind of like charcoal liner in them, and they have
Speaker 1: fabric on them that is different Prince, so Hello Kitty,
Speaker 1: or dot patterns or ad patterns or anything that you
Speaker 1: can think of. It's a fabric pattern on these masks.
Speaker 1: And so you just see people rolling around in them.
Speaker 1: I think like a skull with teeth would be kind
Speaker 1: of cool. Yeah, I bet you. If I had looked
Speaker 1: long enough, I would have seen that. You know what,
Speaker 1: it's really surprised. I didn't see everybody wears helmets. Like
Speaker 1: everybody has helmets on and sometimes they're not the best
Speaker 1: help in traffic or pedestrians to traffic when they're driving scooters,
Speaker 1: but an open, open topped vehicles. They also seem to
Speaker 1: wear helmets as well, like dump trucks that don't have
Speaker 1: a cab top on them. I saw guys wearing helmets.
Speaker 1: But what's funny is that they're not all motorcycle or
Speaker 1: scooter style helmets. Some of them are obviously bicycle helmets
Speaker 1: as in the law is you have to have a helmet, right,
Speaker 1: it is better than nothing. What I was really surprised
Speaker 1: was is that here you see kids and young adults
Speaker 1: always running around with the helmets that have the Foae
Speaker 1: mohawk on them. I didn't see one anywhere, And I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sure I'm gonna make my fortune in Vietnam by
Speaker 1: showing up with a helmet with bristles on it and
Speaker 1: selling them on the street corner, and they're gonna go
Speaker 1: like hotcakes. Yeah, it looks like a Roman centurion or something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: or who was it? I guess it was the Trojan
Speaker 1: said with the war, those funny those cool little helmets
Speaker 1: with the red Yeah, okay, yeah, it's cool. You know,
Speaker 1: if you can wear a hell like you might as
Speaker 1: well be stylish about it. Yeah. That was a big
Speaker 1: thing back in the day. Crazy helmets. Oh yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1: Tell you such apart. Yeah yeah, Hey, let's let's I'll
Speaker 1: take a break from all this talk about helmets and
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Speaker 1: on HBO. Now, all right, let's get back into the traffic.
Speaker 1: But but you were talking about like traffic, and when
Speaker 1: I was like, you know, in Latin America, I honestly,
Speaker 1: relationship between drivers and pedestrians it's much different than and
Speaker 1: I think it's that way most of the because even
Speaker 1: and that's it's like probably developed country, the attitude is
Speaker 1: what can I do for you? What can I do
Speaker 1: for you, wonderful pedestrian over there? Over there, it's get
Speaker 1: the hell out of my way. Actually, frankly, even most
Speaker 1: places in America it's like that as well, probably West Coast,
Speaker 1: but any pedestrian friendly. Yeah, but like in Latin America
Speaker 1: is especially more so. It's like you're your fair game.
Speaker 1: If you're still on the street when the light changes,
Speaker 1: your your fair game. So the funny thing is is that, well, okay,
Speaker 1: so my my boss had been to Vietnam about four
Speaker 1: or five years ago, and when I got back, she said, oh,
Speaker 1: so do they do they actually uh followed the stop signals?
Speaker 1: Do they actually follow the lights or just keep going?
Speaker 1: Because when I was there, nobody paid attention to the lights.
Speaker 1: When I was there, people paid attention to the lights.
Speaker 1: But there appears to be more cars on the road
Speaker 1: because they're reducing the teriffs on vehicles. But as a pedestrian,
Speaker 1: the rule is once you start, you don't stop, and
Speaker 1: you stay at a consistent speed, so you have to look.
Speaker 1: You have to make eye contact with everybody coming at you.
Speaker 1: But if you keep moving at a steady pace forward
Speaker 1: don't if you were in your behavior, they will go
Speaker 1: around you. And I have waded through streets that were
Speaker 1: bumper to bumper scooters inside and they just kind of
Speaker 1: make room and you walk through. And I had a
Speaker 1: friend though that she's like, I have to close my
Speaker 1: eyes and just go. And at one point I was
Speaker 1: next to her and she looked up and she saw
Speaker 1: scooters coming and she stopped and I had to reach
Speaker 1: out I was behind to put my hand on the
Speaker 1: small of her back and give her just don't stop,
Speaker 1: don't stop, don't stop. Got to the other side of
Speaker 1: the road. So they are they're they're good about it.
Speaker 1: If you're good about it in in Southeast Asia, just
Speaker 1: don't get like, you know, I have an encounter with
Speaker 1: that guy that's carrying long piece of pie, because that
Speaker 1: would suck e well, that guys to go slower, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know. And and it's funny, is the way traffic
Speaker 1: appears to be is that I worry about the people
Speaker 1: that are in front of me and directly to my
Speaker 1: left and right in my my field of view, and
Speaker 1: I don't give a crap about the people behind me.
Speaker 1: So if you are gonna turn, you blinkers don't count.
Speaker 1: You just start turning. But you you start turning and
Speaker 1: going rather slowly, and then the traffic behind you all
Speaker 1: pools around you and gets that and you're able. So
Speaker 1: the guy with the law on board starts making a
Speaker 1: right hand turn and he just slowly he slows down,
Speaker 1: but he goes and the stream just opens up around
Speaker 1: him and just behind him. That is the thing is,
Speaker 1: you know. And um, you know, here in America, driving
Speaker 1: on the streets is very very regulated. There's tons of
Speaker 1: signs everywhere, tons of rules. You know. There's actually been
Speaker 1: a few European cities that have tried taking away traffic controls,
Speaker 1: signed lights and everything that actually works out, because it
Speaker 1: turns out people can figure it out, just like just
Speaker 1: like in some of these places in the Third World,
Speaker 1: they're very few, like you honest, I was in Mexico
Speaker 1: many years ago, like and uh, and there were no
Speaker 1: lights or stop signs or anything at these city intersections.
Speaker 1: And what would happen is is that all the traffic
Speaker 1: would just go. There'd be the stream of cars, and
Speaker 1: meantime at the cross street, all those people they're just
Speaker 1: sort of accumulate. And then eventually it sort of thins
Speaker 1: out the stream, it turns out, and and then somebody
Speaker 1: just sort of forces his way out into there in
Speaker 1: that stream. And then those guys, first the first stream
Speaker 1: has to stop when everybody else goes, you know, and
Speaker 1: then when that starts to thin out, then these guys
Speaker 1: forced their way through and it just yeah, and and
Speaker 1: you don't need lights. It just works, you know, So yeah,
Speaker 1: and people figure it out. Yeah. It My favorite was
Speaker 1: that when we were pedestrians, and we were pedestrians the
Speaker 1: whole damn time, but walking across an intersection in Hanoi
Speaker 1: that was a six way intersection with it was three
Speaker 1: streets came in. There was about a hundred foot stretch
Speaker 1: and then they split into three directions. So you never
Speaker 1: walked through that hundred foot stretch because it was too dense. Instead,
Speaker 1: it was easier to go to each of those three
Speaker 1: and make your way across. Yeah, but it was totally fun. Um.
Speaker 1: I know, we're getting close to the time. The only
Speaker 1: other thing that I want to share is that I'm
Speaker 1: amazed that nobody's house just spontaneously burns down because of
Speaker 1: electrical fires. There I showed I think you guys have
Speaker 1: seen the photo, but power polls these concrete deals that
Speaker 1: go up. They look almost like cinder block towers, but
Speaker 1: it is a literal spider webs, rats, nest of wires
Speaker 1: going in every direction and there are multiple power boxes
Speaker 1: on the pole. And it turns out the reasoning for
Speaker 1: this is that they it's called in this country, and
Speaker 1: they all own it and they all help. So when
Speaker 1: Devon's power goes out, Joe and Steve get together, crawl
Speaker 1: up there and we figure out how to wire new
Speaker 1: power to Devon's apartment. But we don't know what causes
Speaker 1: the short and we also don't know which of the
Speaker 1: other four boxes on that poll are live anymore. Letton
Speaker 1: which wires our power or communication wires, And so it
Speaker 1: just becomes this, I kid you, not dense web. There's
Speaker 1: an artist out there. She does these really crazy installations
Speaker 1: where she uses fishing nets like shrimp nets, and you
Speaker 1: see it and I think I saw it in one
Speaker 1: of the airports, but she's got the installations all over
Speaker 1: the US, and she makes these crazy amorphous shapes by
Speaker 1: putting these fishing nets in in you know, it'll drape
Speaker 1: down in kind of a w shape and then pull
Speaker 1: back up on itself and then pull back out, and
Speaker 1: there's all this complex layering and you look up and
Speaker 1: it's just strings going everywhere. That is what it looks
Speaker 1: like when you look up at just about any intersection
Speaker 1: in Vietnam, because there are so many wires everywhere. Is
Speaker 1: there is there also power pirrating going on, and people
Speaker 1: just sort of like, I'm sure that there is I
Speaker 1: only I saw guys in um in jumpsuits that obviously
Speaker 1: were the power company four times working on things. But
Speaker 1: there was a ladder. It wasn't, you know, as if
Speaker 1: they were working up high in the nest. They were
Speaker 1: working low on a box. But I'm sure that people
Speaker 1: are stealing power and they're stealing cable all the time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: no doubt. How are you going to track it though
Speaker 1: you're not. It's such a it's such a freaking messy
Speaker 1: knows where the line goes anymore, So it doesn't really Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: the thing is, the thing is too is you really
Speaker 1: can't bust everybody. I mean, millions of people are doing
Speaker 1: and I'm sure so you know exactly. Yeah, sounds like
Speaker 1: close times you guys have any other random little question.
Speaker 1: It sounds like he had a good time. And I
Speaker 1: was like, I know that I was. I was for
Speaker 1: a while. I was. I was sort of planning a
Speaker 1: trip to Southeast Asia and there's this one place. It
Speaker 1: was just outside of pant On, pen Yeah, and they
Speaker 1: had you probably didn't go to this place, but this
Speaker 1: place I found in the only planet guy, and it's
Speaker 1: like it was cool. They had like a lot of
Speaker 1: leftover relics from the wars. Then there's not besides the
Speaker 1: Vietnam War. Of course, there's Cambodia. Yeah, yeah, So you
Speaker 1: can go there and you can shoot a fully automatic
Speaker 1: ak for a price, and and and if you want
Speaker 1: to pay even more, you could actually maybe toss a
Speaker 1: live hand grenade. You know, there's all kinds of cool stuff.
Speaker 1: You didn't do any of that, you know, when I
Speaker 1: when I was in Cambodia, we went to uh seem
Speaker 1: Reap and went to Anchor Watton three or four days
Speaker 1: touring those thousand years room, and then we went to
Speaker 1: Sinookville or Sanokville which is on the coast, and hung
Speaker 1: out on the beach. So I didn't do any of that,
Speaker 1: but I know that there are all kinds of things
Speaker 1: like that. But there's all kinds of things like that
Speaker 1: in loose in Vietnam. Well, I don't think you can
Speaker 1: shoot guns and blow stuff up in Vietnam Is easily,
Speaker 1: but I'm sure you could in Cambodia and Thailand Is.
Speaker 1: I haven't been to Thailand. From what I understand, it's
Speaker 1: kind of the weirder darker. Everything happens kind of place
Speaker 1: in terms of I mean there's tons of backpackers, and
Speaker 1: I found tons of backpackers, I mean the backpacker alleys.
Speaker 1: But it seems that that's more of a wild West
Speaker 1: in Thailand. It's kind of anything goes place. It's definitely
Speaker 1: know the place to go if you want to catch AIDS.
Speaker 1: Yeah it is. Yeah. I mean if I don't know
Speaker 1: that that necessarily is true anywhere that you go, that
Speaker 1: you're being foolish and not protecting yourself for sure. Now
Speaker 1: I guess, but apparently it's it's a big like sort
Speaker 1: of sex tourism destination for a lot of people, a
Speaker 1: lot of Europe. Well, I guess what I meant by
Speaker 1: the wild West was more of people just go and
Speaker 1: they get wasted, and the locals consider all tourists as march.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was this kind of like undiscovered paradise
Speaker 1: for a while. It's my understanding that more and more,
Speaker 1: like with every passing year, it's becoming more and more touristy.
Speaker 1: It's really westernizing a lot. So you know, things are
Speaker 1: getting marks because for a while it was like you
Speaker 1: could go, you get an airbnb for like literally fifteen
Speaker 1: U s. Dollars for an entire month, right, that's your
Speaker 1: whole rent. And you just live right on you know,
Speaker 1: everything is super super cheap. You live right on the river.
Speaker 1: You live this like crazy Instagram life and it's super cheap,
Speaker 1: and you know, totally dreaming. You can't do that as much.
Speaker 1: It can't last, you know, you know what, honestly better
Speaker 1: better for Thailand probably probably. But the thing when you
Speaker 1: but I can say is that when I looked at
Speaker 1: the cost of the currency exchanges and the cost of
Speaker 1: things when you're this is a funny denomination thing. When
Speaker 1: you're in Cambodia, they use the real which is four
Speaker 1: I think it's four thousand real to an American dollar.
Speaker 1: When you go to Vietnam, it's the viet dong, and
Speaker 1: the viet dong is twenty two thousand to one U s. Dollar.
Speaker 1: You can it's it's it's wow, it's so cheap. But
Speaker 1: it turns out real estate is absurdly expensive there. But
Speaker 1: even even though I mean it is like mill it
Speaker 1: is millions of Viet dong per square foot, it's actually
Speaker 1: not that much. It still turns out you can rent
Speaker 1: an apartment and nice two bedroom Western is apartment not
Speaker 1: in the heart of Hannoy, but like on the outskirts
Speaker 1: for five d dollars a month. Trying to find a
Speaker 1: nice two bedroom apartment in the city of Portland for
Speaker 1: two for five hundred bucks and let me know what happens.
Speaker 1: Even if you found a condemned two closets, it would
Speaker 1: still cost more than So it's so it's understandable why
Speaker 1: this is appealing. But if you ever get anybody YouTube
Speaker 1: or anybody listening, gets the chance to tour Southeast Asia,
Speaker 1: take the opportunity. Do your research. I would recommend there
Speaker 1: are services out there that will set up your visa
Speaker 1: for you, because a lot of them are visa on entry,
Speaker 1: meaning you can't apply for visa beforehand. You gotta get
Speaker 1: it when you get there. But you can hire a
Speaker 1: company provide your docs and just show up with your paperwork.
Speaker 1: You privated your documentation electronically, and when you show up,
Speaker 1: they got lou placard, says your name here, and you
Speaker 1: say that's me, and they say great, set over there,
Speaker 1: stupid guy. And then they say come with me, stupid person,
Speaker 1: and they lead you to a line to a customs
Speaker 1: official with a completed package. And then they stamp, stamp, stamp,
Speaker 1: and all the way you go, and it takes it's
Speaker 1: very cheap, and it takes a lot of stress and
Speaker 1: worry out of your travels in a allows you to
Speaker 1: enjoy your travels. I personally would be going back soon.
Speaker 1: I enjoyed it a lot going back to Southeast Asian.
Speaker 1: This episode not brought to you by Southeast Asia by
Speaker 1: the Vietnam Tourism Board. Yeah, yeah, I definitely that together.
Speaker 1: I really want to go to Hong Kong someday since
Speaker 1: I'd love to see Hong Kong, I do I really
Speaker 1: the next big adventure, like me figure out how to
Speaker 1: get there and how to navigate is I've always had
Speaker 1: this stream of traveling to Japan because there's something about
Speaker 1: the Japanese culture that really fascinates me, and so I
Speaker 1: go there. I just want to ride on the Tokyo Subway. Well,
Speaker 1: you know what's really funny is I have a friend
Speaker 1: that just came back from a two week vacation in Japan,
Speaker 1: and she said the great thing was is because they
Speaker 1: have the high speed rails, you tour the entire freaking
Speaker 1: country and it takes twenty five minutes to an hour
Speaker 1: to get to somewhere way far away because the trains
Speaker 1: are so lightning fast, rather than hopping on a bus
Speaker 1: or trainers or a regular train or an airplane. So
Speaker 1: that's another one that I'm thinking of. Uh, but we
Speaker 1: are run along on time here, So for all of
Speaker 1: our premium members, thank you for being premium members. We
Speaker 1: really do appreciated. A Stitcher is a great place and
Speaker 1: we're happy to be here with them. We will again,
Speaker 1: as always, be giving you down the rabbit hole, even
Speaker 1: though I know this one's a little bit different, but hey,
Speaker 1: something different and fun and personal is always fun to share.
Speaker 1: So do you do have anything else that you want
Speaker 1: to share for today? No? No, not really. Thank I'm
Speaker 1: trying to think of a good snappy alive from the
Speaker 1: Deerhead or something like that, but I can't think of anything,
Speaker 1: so okay, yeah, I guess Bye bye Hunter. I want
Speaker 1: to know why the deer just does Okay, thank you, guys,
Speaker 1: and it's been fun sharing this little bit of this
Speaker 1: extra special episode and until next month. We'll talk to
Speaker 1: you later. Hi, guys.